


Touch

by Hopeful_Foolx



Series: Whumptober 2019 [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, A bit of frumpkin, Angst, Caduceus is the best, Caleb angst, Dragged away, Hurt/Comfort, I am still in this fandom and i don't thin I will ever leave, Nightmares, Whump, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 02:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20987510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_Foolx/pseuds/Hopeful_Foolx
Summary: Whumptober Day 6 - dragged away. Caleb can't know that the hands are there to help him and drag him out of the depths of the spell, so he fights them. Nightmare-fic, kind of





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I am so late xD Sorry, the last days were really busy but I catch up now. Again, I am not a native speaker but I try my best. I am also completely overwhelmed by the comments I got for my fiction here. Seriously, I love you all! I was so nervous actually uploading here and you all make it so much better! Thank you for that. This one is angsty, like Caleb is.

The room is dark when Caleb opens his eyes and blinks, not sure if he has suddenly gone blind. Dark but warm, in a sickly way, pressing on him. The air is thick with what could be smoke, but he can’t see, he can only feel, move, but not of his own accord. His feet move through the dark and he can’t shake the feeling that it is not himself who moves his body. He can see a dot far away - red, orange, yellow, flickering. Not blind then. A light, and he thinks about a threat, about that someone must have put him here, but his feet already move, making him stumble forward, until the dot grows larger, and suddenly, one second to the next, it’s not a dot anymore. 

It’s a house. Wooden walls, windows left and right to the door. A bench under one of them, two flowered pillows on them. The door is the same brown as the house, the doorknob silver where the golden color rubbed off from use. He can’t stop. He can’t stop himself from opening the door, even as he tries to struggle, fights against his own hand that’s moving towards the door. He doesn’t want to open it, please, please no, he knows what will happen when he does, he’s been here before. He knows the house, he knows the pillows by the bench, where his parents would sit after a day of work, only for a short time of rest before something else was to do, good people they are, were, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to find out, he doesn’t want to see their burned faces, their ashen expression, mouth wide and eyes wider, screaming, shouting for help, until they burned or suffocated, if they were lucky. 

But he opens the door. The ground is hard and clean, he can hear his own steps on them. His shoes… Mother would not be pleased with dirt. There is a mirror next to the door, he sees himself, dirty face, dirty coat in the clean hallway, the shelf under it where he can see the shoes of his parents. 

A voice in the back of his mind. 

_ “Light them up pretty” _

There is a grip on his arm, one hand, many hands, pulling him away, but it is not him, he can see himself standing there, setting the house on fire. Standing in the middle of it, standing there and watching it burn. The hands are all over his body, his legs, his arms, touching skin, touching scars, 

He sees the doorknob melt like wax. The flowers on the pillows from purple to red to black as they light up for a second and burn, black smoke emerging even more now. Thick and heavy.

“Nein, bitte nicht, ich kann nicht, nicht noch einmal-” He tries to wrestle away from the hands, but they have a firm hold on him, he is dragged backwards, out of the house, away, and when he looks at them to pry them away they are smoke, black smoke, hands of fire holding him tight without burning him, but burning the world around him. They might even be his own hands, but they are dragging him backwards, away from the burning house, the screams that get hoarse as smoke fills lungs and makes it hard for them to breathe. It doesn’t matter how much he struggles. How much he screams, screams until he might as well feel blood in his throat. They drag him away so he can’t move, but he can still see, no matter how far away he gets. His mother. His father. But now there is not only the two of them he sees there, it’s not only them. Suddenly he spots Jester on the window to the right, her hands pressed against the glass, she talks and he can’t hear her, tears on her face, Fjord, next to her, angry, shouting, but he knows he will burn as well. Nott, next to them, her tiny hands punching the glass. She tries to get out, he sees her lips move to form his name. 

_ “He puts on quite a fight!”  _ A voice, he tries to bite the hand, but it just vanishes to reappear in a second.   
His own hands cast fireballs towards the house, someone is laughing, and he takes too long to realize it’s him. Screaming, laughing, begging- 

“I am sorry, Es tut mir leid, please, do not - not them, please-” He’s sobbing uncontrollably now, the hands still on him. His feet glide off the floor as he struggles and kicks. 

He hands yank him backwards. _Verzeiht mir, bitte, ich flehe euch an..._

The next second there is cold air in his lungs, not enough, not enough air in his lungs even as he tries to get it in. 

He can still see their faces. Jesters tears, Nott calling his name, his mother and his father, both so proud, these good people, both dead by his hand, as are the rest of the Nein now. He killed them, just as he killed his own parents, and- 

He chokes on a breath, tries to push the hands away even as the dark fades to light, but they remain. He can’t hear anything apart from the flames that roar in his ears, but the heat slowly fades and it’s not burning, not fire, but it has to be-

His heartbeat, bis own breathing, the roaring in his ears, he can’t concentrate, a voice - 

“He can’t hear you, just hold him down enough so he won’t hurt himself!” No, no… No more, no more touching, no more holding, please, no-   
  


“Yes, Mr. Fjord, this might be true, but I would rather continue to talk to Mr. Caleb, before he makes himself pass out.” No, Fjord is dead, he killed him. Caduceus’ voice cuts through as sharp as a knife, but it is soft. Different. He struggles weakly against the person holding him now, as he can’t conjure the strength. 

“It’s okay, you’re fine now. We got you.” We? We? Who is… Why… What- “Could you open your eyes? It’s a tad too bright, morning, if you want to know.” He keeps his eyes firmly closed, shuts them tightly. He doesn’t want to see the fire. Morning, no, how…? Soft, the voice is soft and the ground is soft and warm, and and and… 

“Breathe, Mr. Caleb. Nice in and out, just like that.” It gets darker behind his eyelids and a cool hand cups his and he now realizes he is shaking, trembling like a leaf. He flinches away, a soft whimper escapes his lips, hands on his ears and the roaring is back. The hands… The hands are gone now. No more touching. A soft sigh. Soft soft soft… 

“No touching then, we can manage without it. How about you lay down? I sent the others away, but Nott is in the hallway.” Nott, no, he burned her, she… she… His eyes remain tightly shut. Nobody drags him anymore. Caduceus just talks, quietly, later he puts a blanket around his shoulders. It’s much later that he opens his eyes to a dim room, Caduceus in a chair, a cup of tea on the nightstand. Nott is on the bed too, arms around Frumpkin, safe and alive, breathing, a few inches away. She doesn’t touch him. Nobody does until the morning when he softly tugs her hand to hug her. Even as Fjord puts a hand on his shoulder and Jester wraps her arms around him, he stays put. They are not dragging him away, no hands on his arms, no bruises. And if he does flinch at first, they don’t mention it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) Talk to me on Tumblr on @loves-already-won


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